"Very Small" island still too large

So I play pretty much sandbox exclusively and I must say, the "Very Small" island option still seems too large. There's a population cap of 2015 people, and by the time I hit it, my city is at best taking up 30-40% of the map. I would really love to be able to generate considerably smaller islands, to provide greater challenges in city layout. I know you can put it on very small and high elevation, (usually there's a volcano taking up a large chunk of the map then) but it'd be nice to have other options. I miss having the map overlay when you generate random maps too...

Much has been already said about the population cap. I know that the devs would love nothing more than to release the game out of the box with unlimited pop cap, but the simple math of it is, at some point your computer will not be able to process the information, and will slow down, glitch out, or crash. Modding community I'm sure is already working to lift it, as an option to those with better computers, but they as devs have to aim for the middle. They can't release a product that crashes, you just can't do that.

If people set the population cap to above their capabilities and can't figure out why their game is slowing down, that's their problem. You shouldn't have to design games for the lowest common denominator.

this. those people should use consoles. im not trolling, but that is their strong point. everyone has the same hardware, the devs code for it, and options aren't important. the user doesnt have to think about it.

lots of game options can effect game performance. its the nice thing about PC, if you want to play a pretty game at 30FPS, or play the same game at a snappy 60 but it just looks OK, its your option. or maybe your hardware sucks, and you have to make it look like junk to get 30...but at least you get to play.

i can kind of see why they leave it out. the problem is people could set it high...start playing and it looks fine...it wont be until they have invested quite a lot in the save before they find out their PC cant handle it.

though really the solution would be a benchmark test. you would set Pop Cap to like 6000, and hit "Test", the game loads a scripted save, benchmarks it, lets you see how it looks, maybe has you click a few things to check menus...then it goes back to the options and asks if you want to keep it.

if nothing else, it should be editable in a .ini or .cfg file. PC gamers know once they are editing files, they are in experimental territory and not to blame devs if the unofficially supported options arent working on their rig.

"setting this option to high values may cause performance problems on some hardware. adjust setting with discretion."

or, make it so the menu only goes up to 2015 or whatever, but that you can put in much higher values in the .cfg or .ini file. gamers know when they edit files they are doing things that are experimental and not officially supported.

users that cant handle that should be gaming on a console where everyone has the same hardware. the devs can handle making the setting ideal for play experience on that device, and the gamer cant fuck it up, and doesnt have to worry about it.

Wouldn't it be great if, as a fun challenge you could have a small map (maybe 50% smaller than "Very Small") and you had to continually re-think your city design to accommodate more people more efficiently? I feel like this is what city planners in dense, urban populations face, and is something I would love to be able to explore.

exactly! It would be interesting to work around and you wouldn't feel like 90% of the island is just wasted space. You'd have to strategically place factories and waste management facilities would actually be important.